Celebrating 60 years of Computing Science at UofG
Published: 23 June 2017
In 1957, the University of Glasgow became the first University in Scotland to have an electronic computer.
The flagship event of the 60th anniversary of Computing at UofG celebrations was held on Saturday, 17 June 2017, writes Tania Galabova, School of Computing Science.
Following a welcome from Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, the capacity audience of more than 100 staff, research students, alumni and representatives from industry heard inspiring talks on the history of Computing from Professor Steve Furber, one of the foremost academics in the field of Computer Science and a principal designer of the BBC Micro and the ARM microprocessor.
Steve highlighted the formidable rate of progress over the last 60 years, whilst observing that no machine had passed the Turing test on machine intelligence first espoused in 1950.
This was followed by an energetic presentation from our own Jeremy Singer on Glasgow’s first computer, the Digital Electronic Universal Computing Engine (DEUCE) which was installed in 1958, including the differences in scale and computing power compared with a modern Raspberry Pi.
Alastair O’Brien, Strategic Development Director of Incremental Group, and one of Glasgow’s first computing graduates gave an entertaining look back on the alumni experience and the influential figures in Glasgow’s past.
The historical part of the day concluded with an enlightening talk from Professor Ursula Martin from the University of Oxford on the life and education of Ada Lovelace and her famous 1843 paper. A ‘birthday’ message from Valerie Gilles, widow of Dennis Gilles, the first Chair of Computing Science at Glasgow, was read out between talks.
The formal part of the celebrations concluded with a range of talks on Computing the Future from representatives of our four research sections, and an overview on computing science education and its emergence as a mainstream discipline.
Celebrations continued into late evening over dinner. Thank you to our organisers, sponsors and all those who made the day a success, in particular our wonderful external speakers – Steve, Alastair and Ursula.
Upcoming, the School is planning for the launch of its pioneering Centre for Computing Science Education on 1st September 2017. In the interim, you can find out more about our research in computing by visiting 60 years playlist
First published: 23 June 2017
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